DOCSLIB.ORG

Malcolm Gladwell on Writing

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Malcolm Gladwell on Writing The Daily Northwestern - New Yorker writer Gladwell shares tips, stories 02/23/2007 10:06 AM < Back | Home New Yorker writer Gladwell shares tips, stories Becky Bowman Posted: 11/13/01 Reporters should always "swing late," waiting until they begin reporting a story to decide what angle to take with it, New Yorker staff writer Malcolm Gladwell said Monday in Fisk Hall. Gladwell said he has steadfast rules of reporting: Swing late, don't overload stories with information, decide what is truly interesting about a story and meet as many people as possible. Gladwell, whose book "The Tipping Point" examines the intricacies of social networks and the way trends become "epidemics," also said cultivating sources for news stories can be as easy as having a social life. "That's just something I do automatically when I meet someone, without knowing that I'm doing it," Gladwell said. "I try to figure out what they know." He illustrated his point by describing how he wrote "Six Degrees of Lois Weisberg," a New Yorker piece about a 73-year-old Chicago woman who knew everyone in the city. He said the piece practically wrote itself because so much of the reporting involved talking and socializing. Born in England and raised and schooled in Toronto, Gladwell worked as a science writer and New York bureau chief for The Washington Post before moving to The New Yorker in 1996. At The New Yorker, he has written about everything from how fast food is killing Americans to an obese American Indian tribe giving scientists lessons on how to fight weight gain. Wearing dark blue jeans and black Nike sneakers and occasionally pulling several coins from his pocket, Gladwell also related stories from his time at the Post, where he got his first experience with beat reporting. He described the environment at the Post as "macho" and laid-back. Post reporters had a passion for scooping their more businesslike competitors at The New York Times, Gladwell said. He said his friendship with a Food and Drug Administration official often helped him beat the Times science reporter. "That's what happens when you have friends," he said. "They would just feed everything to me directly." Gladwell said he even bought theater tickets for his FDA source one night so that a Times reporter would be unable to contact him before deadline. "We screwed them so many times," he said with a chuckle. The working environment at The New Yorker has changed since the magazine moved into the Condé Nast building in Times Square, Gladwell said. The immense elevator bank in the new building occupies the http://www.dailynorthwestern.com/home/index.cfm?event=displayArticlePrinterFriendly&uStory_id=cd5ebe08-fea9-4714-a9b7-2e109157a35a Page 1 of 2 The Daily Northwestern - New Yorker writer Gladwell shares tips, stories 02/23/2007 10:06 AM central "hang-out" space of the New Yorker floor that made the old office so much fun to work in, he said. "I just work at home now," Gladwell said. Weinberg junior Paul Flaig said that although Gladwell's lecture focused more on the specifics of his craft than its social impact, he still learned a lot from attending. "I thought his speech was going to be more about the larger social role of journalism in our culture, but it was more about how you write, which was — despite not being Medill — really interesting," he said. "All students are writers at some point." Medill senior and former Daily staffer Emily Biuso said that although it was entertaining to hear Gladwell tell his story of scooping The New York Times, it was also a surprise. "I know that that stuff happens," Biuso said. "It was funny to hear him say it, but I was disappointed that it was talked about in such a lighthearted manner. I was surprised that he was joking about it so much." But Sam Eifling, Medill '01 and a former Daily staffer, said the story didn't seem to be Gladwell's main point. "I think that was just Malcolm being Malcolm," Eifling said. "I don't think that's where he meant to end up." © Copyright 2007 The Daily Northwestern http://www.dailynorthwestern.com/home/index.cfm?event=displayArticlePrinterFriendly&uStory_id=cd5ebe08-fea9-4714-a9b7-2e109157a35a Page 2 of 2.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Looking for Podcast Suggestions? We’Ve Got You Covered
    Looking for podcast suggestions? We’ve got you covered. We asked Loomis faculty members to share their podcast playlists with us, and they offered a variety of suggestions as wide-ranging as their areas of personal interest and professional expertise. Here’s a collection of 85 of these free, downloadable audio shows for you to try, listed alphabetically with their “recommenders” listed below each entry: 30 for 30 You may be familiar with ESPN’s 30 for 30 series of award-winning sports documentaries on television. The podcasts of the same name are audio documentaries on similarly compelling subjects. Recent podcasts have looked at the man behind the Bikram Yoga fitness craze, racial activism by professional athletes, the origins of the hugely profitable Ultimate Fighting Championship, and the lasting legacy of the John Madden Football video game. Recommended by Elliott: “I love how it involves the culture of sports. You get an inner look on a sports story or event that you never really knew about. Brings real life and sports together in a fantastic way.” 99% Invisible From the podcast website: “Ever wonder how inflatable men came to be regular fixtures at used car lots? Curious about the origin of the fortune cookie? Want to know why Sigmund Freud opted for a couch over an armchair? 99% Invisible is about all the thought that goes into the things we don’t think about — the unnoticed architecture and design that shape our world.” Recommended by Scott ABCA Calls from the Clubhouse Interviews with coaches in the American Baseball Coaches Association Recommended by Donnie, who is head coach of varsity baseball and says the podcast covers “all aspects of baseball, culture, techniques, practices, strategy, etc.
    [Show full text]
  • Aristotle Meets Apple: Rhetoric in the Podcast”
    “Aristotle Meets Apple: Rhetoric in the Podcast” By Anna Butrico An Undergraduate Honors Thesis presented to the faculty of Vanderbilt University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of BACHELOR OF ARTS in ENGLISH April 24, 2016 Thesis Advisor: John Clayton Second Reader: Haerin Shin Program Director: Teresa Goddu Instructions for Reading and Listening: This thesis is a multimedia project that has both written and audio components. The introduction and conclusion to the thesis are podcasts themselves, and there are sound bites within the thesis that showcase the podcasts discussed. Refer to the “Butrico Introduction Podcast” MP3 file to hear the introductory podcast, work through the “Sound Bites for Chapter 1 – 3” folders to listen to the bites embedded within the piece, and refer to the “Butrico Conclusion Podcast” file to hear the conclusion. 1 Introduction: Listen to “Butrico Intro Podcast” Chapter I Engaging Listeners in Problem Solving: Deliberative Rhetoric in the Podcast Mrs. Thompson stands on stage at a University of Michigan conference in 2004, holding a letter in her hands. Her shaky voice belies her strength and focused intentions, as she leans her sixty-year old body over the microphone to speak. “Dear Miss Buchanan,” her voice rings out, slowly reading a letter that fired an African American teacher from the local school system. Mrs. Thompson’s words unroll a profound social paradox: the integration of White students into Black schools after the Brown v. Topeka Board of Education verdict illogically caused an increased segregation of Black teachers. This policy (that had large and lasting unintended consequences) is one of the many examples of deliberative rhetoric that the podcast Revisionist History addresses.
    [Show full text]
  • OUTLIERS: the STORY of SUCCESS by Malcolm Gladwell
    An Executive Summary of OUTLIERS: THE STORY OF SUCCESS by Malcolm Gladwell Who is Malcolm Gladwell Malcolm Gladwell is most known for his books, “The Tipping Point: How little things can make a big difference”, “Blink: The power of thinking without thinking”, and “Outliers: The Story of Success”. Amazingly, all the books have been featured on The New York Best Sellers list. Gladwell, who was born on September 3, 1963, is not only a writer but is also a journalist and speaker. As a staff writer for the prestigious “New Yorker” ever since 1966, he has gained a lot of popularity due to this books that deal with his research in various areas of social science. Most importantly, he is known to write in a way that provokes and challenges the reader to think differently. This is our summary of his book: Outliers: The Story of Success Preston and Stig’s General Thoughts on the Book We were initially turned on to this book by a comment that Charlie Munger made during a shareholders meeting. Although many might find the discussion of extraordinary people un-relatable, we are of the opinion that the book provides great insights into the importance of finding your own unique “assets”. Perhaps contrarily to others I don’t see this book as a testament to the concept of luck. I would much rather say that if you are willing to work hard, are talented, and you are lucky to have the right opportunities, you will become successful. Even the most successful people in this world are hard working, and a single individual has hardly been successful by merely having birthdays on a lucky date or simply being gifted with special skills.
    [Show full text]
  • Outliers (Book) 1 Outliers (Book)
    Outliers (book) 1 Outliers (book) Outliers Author(s) Malcolm Gladwell Cover artist Allison J. Warner Country United States Language English Genre(s) Psychology, sociology Publisher Little, Brown and Company Publication date November 18, 2008 Media type Hardback, paperback, audiobook Pages 304 ISBN 9780316017923 [1] OCLC Number 225870354 Dewey Decimal 302 22 LC Classification BF637.S8 G533 2008 Outliers: The Story of Success is a non-fiction book written by Malcolm Gladwell and published by Little, Brown and Company on November 18, 2008. In Outliers, Gladwell examines the factors that contribute to high levels of success. To support his thesis, he examines the causes of why the majority of Canadian ice hockey players are born in the first few months of the calendar year, how Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates achieved his extreme wealth, and how two people with exceptional intelligence, Christopher Langan and J. Robert Oppenheimer, end up with such vastly different fortunes. Throughout the publication, Gladwell repeatedly mentions the "10,000-Hour Rule", claiming that the key to success in any field is, to a large extent, a matter of practicing a specific task for a total of around 10,000 hours. The publication debuted at number one on the bestseller lists for The New York Times and The Globe and Mail, holding the position on the former for eleven consecutive weeks. Generally well-received by critics, Outliers was considered more personal than Gladwell's other works, and some reviews commented on how much Outliers felt like an autobiography. Reviews praised the connection that Gladwell draws between his own background and the rest of the publication to conclude the book.
    [Show full text]
  • Students' Book· Audio Scripts
    STUDENTS’ BOOK· AUDIO SCRIPTS throughout the book is pick up on these T: What’s that? UNIT 7 Recording 1 little things that we really need to go J: Blocking? It’s where you stand or move P = Presenter I = Ian back and look at again if we are to really to, y’know? Like, when you say your words understand why successful people are as you might have to walk quickly across the P: Hello and welcome back to the Focus successful as they are. stage. Or move in front of someone. It’s all podcast. I’m Jenny Osmond, the editor of P: I think the 10,000 hours magic number planned and er, you have to remember it. Focus, the monthly science and technology is really interesting because, as you know, T: Oh, I see. magazine from the BBC. I used to play tennis professionally, and J: But it’s funny: for, for other things I have He’s the hugely influential author of Blink I hit a load of tennis balls when I was a terrible memory. I’m totally useless. I and the Tipping Point. His work is quoted younger. And I’m sure, I must have done always forget birthdays and dates. I’m always by academics, presidents and your mates 10,000 hours’ worth, you know, I must late for things. It’s just … yeah … luckily, I’m down the pub. And now Malcolm Gladwell have done four hours a day, and stuff. OK with my lines. has turned that deft mind of his to a new And I remember speaking to Martina P: What about you, Tim? subject: the science of success.
    [Show full text]
  • IMPACT the Journal of the CENTER for INTERDISCIPLINARY TEACHING and LEARNING
    IMPACT The Journal of the CENTER FOR INTERDISCIPLINARY TEACHING AND LEARNING Volume 6, Number 2, SUMMer 20177 Impact TABLE OF CONTENTS About Us ................................................................................................................................................. 3 Editorial Statement ................................................................................................................................... 4 About This Issue’s Authors ...................................................................................................................... 5 Announcements ....................................................................................................................................... 6 Impact Essay Competition ....................................................................................................................... 7 Essays: Podcasts and the Twenty-first Century College Classroom By Rick Cole and Beth Kramer ....................................................................................................... 8 Podcasting in the Composition Classroom: Writing, Research, and Activism By Bethany Holmstrom .................................................................................................................. 12 Teaching Serial at the Criminal Justice College: Discomforting Ethics and Interdisciplinary Methods for Critical Thinking By Julie L. Gafney .........................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Texas Book Festival to Host Malcolm Gladwell at 2019 Festival Weekend
    TEXAS BOOK FESTIVAL TO HOST MALCOLM GLADWELL AT 2019 FESTIVAL WEEKEND Book Tickets to See Gladwell Present “Talking to Strangers” Now Available WHAT: Texas Book Festival is proud to host multiple New York Times #1 best-selling ​ ​ ​ ​ author Malcolm Gladwell as he presents his new book, Talking to Strangers: What We Should ​ ​ ​ Know About the People We Don’t Know, on Saturday, October 26th at 1 p.m. Book tickets to ​ ​ ​ ​ see Gladwell present this “classically Gladwellian adventure” are available via the Texas Book Festival website and will highlight the troubles and scandals from history through today. Gladwell is the author of five New York Times bestsellers—The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers, ​ ​ ​ What the Dog Saw, and David and Goliath—and has been included in TIME magazine’s “100 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Most Influential People” list and touted as one of Foreign Policy‘s “Top Global Thinkers.” ​ ​ Talking to Strangers is a challenging and controversial excursion through history, psychology, ​ and scandals taken straight from the news. Gladwell revisits the deceptions of Bernie Madoff, the trial of Amanda Knox, the suicide of Sylvia Plath, the Jerry Sandusky pedophilia scandal at Penn State University, and the death of Sandra Bland—throwing our understanding of these and other stories into doubt. In his first book since his #1 best-seller David and Goliath, Malcolm Gladwell has written a ​ ​ gripping guidebook for troubled times. Book tickets for this session are available now via Texas Book Festival’s website and cost $35. Purchasing a book ticket grants admission for one to the Festival session and one pre-signed copy of Gladwell’s Talking to Strangers.
    [Show full text]
  • The Roseto Mystery
    www.penguin.co.uk/tasters Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell Copyright © Malcolm Gladwell, 2008 All rights reserved Penguin Books Ltd This is a limited extract from Outliers To find out more please visit www.penguin.co.uk introduction The Roseto Mystery “these people were dying of old age. that’s it.” out·li·er \- lı-(- )r\e noun ' 1: something that is situated away from or classed differ- ently from a main or related body 2: a statistical observation that is markedly different in value from the others of the sample 1. Roseto Valfortore lies one hundred miles southeast of Rome in the Apennine foothills of the Italian province of Foggia. In the style of medieval villages, the town is orga- nized around a large central square. Facing the square is the Palazzo Marchesale, the palace of the Saggese family, once the great landowner of those parts. An archway to one side leads to a church, the Madonna del Carmine — Our Lady of Mount Carmine. Narrow stone steps run up the hill- side, fl anked by closely clustered two-story stone houses with red-tile roofs. 3 8813731373 ii-x-x 0001-31001-310 rr10tr.indd10tr.indd 3 99/22/08/22/08 55:07:39:07:39 PPMM outliers For centuries, the paesani of Roseto worked in the marble quarries in the surrounding hills, or cultivated the fi elds in the terraced valley below, walking four and fi ve miles down the mountain in the morning and then mak- ing the long journey back up the hill at night. Life was hard.
    [Show full text]
  • The Future of Higher Education
    ANNUAL NEWSLETTER CONCEPTUAL RENDERING THE FUTURE OF HIGHER EDUCATION THE HINCKLEY INSTITUTE’S FUTURE HOME PLANNING FOR THE PRICE INTERNATIONAL PAVILION LAUNCH OF THE SAM RICH LECTURE SERIES MALCOLM GLADWELL’S VISION FOR COMPETITIVE STUDENTS OFFICE FOR GLOBAL ENGAGEMENT PARTNERSHIP THE U’S GLOBAL INTERNSHIPS POISED FOR MASSIVE GROWTH 2013 SICILIANO FORUM EDUCATION EXPERTS CONVERGE FOR FULL WEEK table of contents NEW & NOTEWORTHY: 4 HINCKLEY FELLOWS 5 DIGNITARIES 44 HINCKLEY HAPPENINGS: 8 HINCKLEY PRESENCE 10 HINCKLEY FORUMS 8 THE FUTURE OF HIGHER ED: 12 OUR VISION 14 PRICE INTERNATIONAL BUILDING 15 OUR NEW PARTNERSHIP 16 16 SICILIANO FORUM 18 SAM RICH LECTURE SERIES 1414 HINCKLEY TEAM: 20 OUR INTERNS 30 OUR STAFF 31 31 PORTRAIT UNVEILING Contributing Editors: Ellesse S. Balli Rochelle M. Parker Lisa Hawkins Kendahl Melvin Leo Masic Art Director: Ellesse S. Balli MESSAGE FROM THE DIRECTOR Malcolm Gladwell. Dubbed by the seven short years since we KIRK L. JOWERS Time magazine as “one of the 100 launched our global internship most influential people” in the program, we have placed more world and by Foreign Policy as than 400 students in almost 60 a leading “top global thinker,” countries across the globe. It is Gladwell discussed the advantages now celebrated as the best political of disadvantages in a sold-out and humanitarian internship pro- event at Abravanel Hall. gram in the U.S. Culminating this Gladwell’s findings confirmed achievement, this year the Hinck- my belief that it is far better for ley Institute was charged with undergraduates to be a “big fish” overseeing all University of Utah within the University of Utah and campus global internships in part- Hinckley Institute than a “little nership with the new Office for fish” at an Ivy League school.
    [Show full text]
  • David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants by Malcolm Gladwell New York: Little, Brown, and Company, 2013
    David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants by Malcolm Gladwell New York: Little, Brown, and Company, 2013. 305 pages Reviewed by David W. Gill www.davidwgill.org Malcolm Gladwell is the best-selling author of books such as The Tipping Point, Blink, and Outliers. He has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1996 and before that at The Washington Post. He was born in England and raised in rural Ontario. This is actually the first Gladwell book I have read and I understand why some readers and reviewers question his work from a standard “social science” perspective. In David and Goliath, Gladwell tells and examines ten stories (including David and Goliath) and draws lessons from them. Of course he picks stories that illustrate his overall thesis and then generalizes from them; this is what irks many critics. Any thoughtful reader can think of similar stories with opposite results. But what these stories show is that his lessons on life are possible --- and that’s good enough, even if they are not guaranteed outcomes. Gladwell argues that “much of what we consider valuable in our world arises out of these kinds of lopsided conflicts . the act of facing overwhelming odds produces greatness and beauty.” Second, he says, we often mis-read these stories.” What looks like strength (a big, heavily armored giant) can actually be a weakness (slow, overconfident, etc.)(p. 6). A weakness (small, young) can be a strength (fast, unintimidated) --- or it can produce compensating strengths (the dyslexic who can’t read but develops a phenomenal memory and listening ability).
    [Show full text]
  • Outliers-Malcolm Gladwell
    NonFiction Book Club: May 2021 Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell In this stunning new book, Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of "outliers"--the best and the brightest, the most famous and the most successful. He asks the question: what makes high-achievers different? His answer is that we pay too much attention to what successful people are like, and too little attention to where they are from: that is, their culture, their family, their generation, and the idiosyncratic experiences of their upbringing. Along the way he explains the secrets of software billionaires, what it takes to be a great soccer player, why Asians are good at math, and what made the Beatles the greatest rock band. Author: Malcolm Gladwell Malcolm Gladwell is the author of five New York Times bestsellers—The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers, What the Dog Saw, and David and Goliath. He is also the co-founder of Pushkin Industries, an audio content company that produces the podcasts Revisionist History, which reconsiders things both overlooked and misunderstood, and Broken Record, where he, Rick Rubin, and Bruce Headlam interview musicians across a wide range of genres. Gladwell has been included in the TIME 100 Most Influential People list and touted as one of Foreign Policy's Top Global Thinkers. Find similar reads using these book appeal terms in NoveList Plus: Genre- Business & Economics; Tone- Thought-provoking, Upbeat; Writing Style- Accessible, Engaging You might also enjoy: NonFiction Book Club: May 2021 Discussion Questions: 1. According to Lewis Terman’s research, what is the relationship between intelligence and success? Did any of the findings surprise you? 2.
    [Show full text]
  • Metaphor and Analogy: the Sun and Moon of Legal Persuasion
    Scholarly Commons @ UNLV Boyd Law Scholarly Works Faculty Scholarship 2013 Metaphor and Analogy: The Sun and Moon of Legal Persuasion Linda L. Berger University of Nevada, Las Vegas -- William S. Boyd School of Law Follow this and additional works at: https://scholars.law.unlv.edu/facpub Part of the Cognition and Perception Commons, Cognitive Psychology Commons, Legal Writing and Research Commons, and the Rhetoric and Composition Commons Recommended Citation Berger, Linda L., "Metaphor and Analogy: The Sun and Moon of Legal Persuasion" (2013). Scholarly Works. 895. https://scholars.law.unlv.edu/facpub/895 This Article is brought to you by the Scholarly Commons @ UNLV Boyd Law, an institutional repository administered by the Wiener-Rogers Law Library at the William S. Boyd School of Law. For more information, please contact [email protected]. METAPHOR AND ANALOGY: THE SUN AND MOON OF LEGAL PERSUASION Linda L. Berger* If we insist upon confining ourselves to scrupulously rational modes of thought and discussion, ... this may well have the effect of granting inappropriate influence to pre-existing biases .... Against this, harnessing the power of imagination to reconfigure our thoughts by more intuitive means may enable us to counteract these biases in a more thoroughgoing way. INTRODUCTION Metaphor and analogy are the sun and moon of legal persuasion. But which is the sun and which is the moon? Metaphor is the sun, according to linguist George Lakoff and philosopher Mark Johnson, because all human thought and expression revolve around it.2 Analogy researcher Doug Hofstadter would counter that * Linda L. Berger is Family Foundation Professor of Law, William S.
    [Show full text]